Ren knelt beside Lilith, gently brushing her hair back as he tried to rouse her.
"Lilith!" He said softly, voice shaking. "Lilith, please. Wake up."
Her chest rose and fell with shallow, uneven breaths, blood still trickling from her nose.
The sight sent fear running through Ren more than anything they'd faced so far.
Zuzu, Elias, and Thorn rushed towards them from the edges of the room, their faces pale and strained.
"Thank the heavens you're safe!" Thorn breathed, voice shaking. "We thought we'd lost you both."
"What happened?" Ren asked as he tried to rouse Lilith.
"She went in after you." Zuzu said, kneeling beside them. "You stopped moving after you took the key."
"You just stood there, and we tried calling you, but nothing worked. Lilith reached out to shake you, and then… she froze too."
Elias nodded. "We didn't know what to do. If we touched the key or you, we would've been frozen too, and that'll mean we all get crushed here forevermore."
"And as the door wouldn't open without the key, we needed to get you two unfrozen, but the mirror didn't reflect anything anymore. We were about to break it when it shattered on its own."
Thorn looked between them, then at the shattered glass. "What did you see in there, Ren?"
Ren paused. His arms tightened around Lilith.
"Nothing that matters now." He said quietly. "That mirror was a trap. This entire courtyard was. It wasn't meant to kill us directly. It was meant to waste our time. Keep us locked in here until the ceiling crushed us."
They all looked up. The stone ceiling was terrifyingly close. Barely a hand's width above Ren's head.
"I was in there too long." Ren murmured.
"Can we wake her?" Zuzu asked, glancing at Lilith with concern.
Ren shook his head. "Not here. Not now."
He handed the key in his hand to Elias before gently lifting Lilith into his arms, her body limp against him.
Elias moved quickly to the only door in the room, slipping the key into the lock and turning it.
There was no handle to pull it open with and for a moment, all was silent.
Then, a loud click echoed from the door. And with a deep groan, it creaked open, revealing a long stone corridor stretching ahead into shadow.
The group stepped through cautiously, Ren leading with Lilith in his arms.
"Is it safe to walk across?" Thorn looked around suspiciously.
"Should be." Ren muttered as they walked. "Fits with the logic of the maze. The corridors are the paths and the courtyards are the checkpoint. While we've faced danger inside the corridors before, the danger was never from the corridor itself but from things brought into it by the maze. This should be the same."
And that was when they heard it.
It was high and shrill, like a child being torn apart. It echoed off the walls before reaching their ears. It had come from behind them.
Zuzu turned instinctively. "What—"
Ren snapped, "Don't look back."
He glanced at each of them. "Whatever you hear, don't turn around. Don't stop. This has to be the danger of this particular corridor."
"We're getting close. This has to be the final stretch. It wants to stop us. Break us. We can't let that happen."
Then, the scream shifted and became a voice.
"Ren… please… save me!"
It was Darius' voice.
The voice was filled with pain and fear. "Ren, it hurts! Please, come back! Why are you leaving me?!"
Thorn clenched his fists. "That's not real, right?"
"Keep walking." Ren muttered.
Felix's voice came next, desperate and panicked. "Don't leave me behind, brother!"
The voice wailed, but they kept walking.
Zuzu winced as the voice changed again.
"Zuzu!" This was a voice she recognized, pleading with her. "You promised. You said you'd always come back for me."
Her face twisted into an indecipherable emotion, but she kept walking, lips tightly pressed together.
"Zuzu, it's me, Tam!" The voice said again. "Please. Don't let them take me!"
It screamed as if it was in unimaginable pain.
It felt as if the corridor stretched on endlessly. The screams and voices overlapped now. The voices of their mothers. Angry shouts. Pleading children. Mad whispers.
Ren shut his eyes briefly, forcing himself forward. His steps echoed hollowly against the floor. He didn't look back. None of them did.
Then the voices turned violent.
"Coward!" Hissed one. "You abandoned us!"
"Murderer!" Another screamed.
"You think you deserve to live?!"
Ren's legs trembled under Lilith's weight, not from exhaustion, but from the storm raging in his chest.
Every voice was like a needle. Every accusation was a memory twisted to hurt.
The corridor ended. Elias and Zuzu pushed the door before them open together, and they all stumbled into the next space.
The screaming stopped.
They stood in a wide, circular courtyard, just like the others, but this one had no doorways. No moss. No monsters.
Only one thing set it apart.
Above them, suspended like a dome, was water. Glowing faintly blue, the ceiling shimmered as if there was a light within it.
It stretched from wall to wall like the lid of a massive aquarium.
Zuzu stepped forward. "This is it." She whispered. "I don't even need to touch the water to know. This leads us closer to the heart."
Ren looked up, his eyes cold. "We made it to the end of the maze."
"The exit… is up." Thorn said, blinking. "We climb the water?"
Ren nodded. He adjusted Lilith in his arms, her head resting against his shoulder.
Purple light sparked beneath his feet. He activated his Push resonance.
With a burst of force, he lifted off the ground, floating upward.
Attaching the resonance to Zuzu, Elias, and Thorn, the three of them were Pushed upwards with him.
They soared into the glowing water, passing through its surface as if sinking into another world.
There was barely a splash as they entered and gravity reversed, taking them deeper into the water.